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Common sense would say the toughest part of finishing a 100-mile footrace would be finishing the 100-mile footrace.

But for Great Falls men Kam Kidrick and Josiah Badger, both finishers of the 100-mile Bighorn Mountain Wild and Scenic Trail Run in Wyoming last weekend, that wasn’t the case.

The preparation — not just the physicality of a routine to prepare for 100 miles straight through mud and rocks and rugged country but the time-budgeting it required — was the killer, both men agreed.

And it got addicting.

“It did get to the point where an hour or two hours of doing something was just a let-down,” Badger said, recalling his workout regimen. “It wasn’t enough.”

It was plenty to get the men ready for the Bighorn, though, which is revered one of the toughest of the already Herculean circuit of 100-mile ultramarathons popping up across the globe. Kidrick finished in 28 hours, 37 minutes, 3.9 seconds while Badger crossed at 29:28:43.6. It was the first 100-miler either had raced.

Badger, still sporting a hard-earned trophy of blister-filled feet Monday afternoon, wasn’t shy about the accomplishment.

“I felt like we were with the best athletes in the world, that collective group,” he said.

It’s a defensible argument for sure. One-hundred miles is no slouch, especially not when the trail conditions – stream crossings, recently melted snowfields, rocks and trees and running through the night – and more than 37,000 feet of elevation change are far from a stroll down the River’s Edge Trail.

And the winner, 19-year-old Oregonian Andrew Miller, finished with a new race record in 18:29:37.2. Kidrick and Badger were 76th and 84th, respectively, of the 193 finishers. More than 300 racers began the course.

Nobody does the race alone. Kidrick and Badger carried a support crew of 12 people: their wives, children and friends Jake Babich and Gary Schoenhals. Babich and Schoenhals, along with Badger’s wife Lisa, ran part of the race with the two as pacers.

Race organizers set up 14 aid stations as well, strung periodically along the out-and-back-style racecourse. Aid stations carried everything from first-aid professionals to food to places for racers to stop for a nap.

The race began at 11 a.m. June 19, just outside of Dayton, Wyo. And it was hot, nearly 80 degrees.

“It was really humid, no breeze whatsoever,” Kidrick said. “Everybody said it was unusual.”

That spelled trouble for the 39-year-old early.

“By 30 minutes, my shorts were wetter than they could have been in a swimming pool,” he continued. “I had water in my ear sitting on my ear drum. I was able to get some gauze in there and finally get it out of there, like, seven hours later.”

Kidrick began to cramp early on as well. Around the 19-mile mark, he had a vomiting spell and lost tons of fluid. His calves stiffened up shortly after.

“Every time I took a step where I had to negotiate anything, straight seizure,” Kidrick said. “My leg would go stiff with cramp.”

The two soldiered on, reaching the aid station at the 30-mile mark.

“It was evident everyone around us was in the same boat,” Badger recalled. “… It really made me have a sense of awareness of just how serious – this is life-threatening.”

The 30-mile mark was the crossing of the Little Bighorn River, and the start of a relentless climb toward the turnaround point. But it was beautiful, and Kidrick – who picked up trekking poles at the crossing – got into a groove.

“I said this to myself, ‘I think my superpower is hiking,’” he said. “… I just started hiking in this power-hike up this mountain. It’s dark now, and I’d just be passing people. … I’d stop and ask them where they were from, how they were doing. That was a really fun part of it for me.”

Badger, who was battling blisters, was conquering the uphill portion, too. They reached the turnaround — Kidrick shortly before Badger — around the 13-hour mark, before their crew had arrived.

Badger didn’t spend much time at the aid station. Racers were dropping out right and left. It was depressing. He struck out through the night on the return trip.

Kidrick stuck around, had a bite to eat and a cup of coffee, and picked up Lisa Badger as a pacer. Still in his second wind, they caught Josiah Badger not far on the trail.

“This was the first time we’d had a pacer, so I was happy to have Lisa,” Kidrick said. “We teamed up with these other kids that turned out to be from Bozeman. We were just trucking along.”

Kidrick pressed ahead at the next aid station while Badger was nursing his blistered feet. Lisa stayed with her husband.

And it was probably a good thing.

Though the physical element of endurance racing is taxing, maintaining mental fortitude is likely tougher. Badger was battling that.

“It really got dark in my mind,” he recalled. “It got scary. And there was one point where I just started crying. I was running and crying, and I couldn’t see anything. … I just left it there. I just had this cry session and moved on. And I just started running again. … I was just talking out loud like a crazy person and just letting some stuff go.”

At the return crossing of the Bighorn, Josiah got it together.

“I finally just snapped out of it,” he said. “… I told myself to stop feeling like a victim.”

Lisa ended up running 35 miles of the trail — her own little ultramarathon and 18 miles more than they’d planned for her to do.

“Whenever you’re pacing someone, you’ve got to keep their spirits up, shut up when you need to shut up,” Lisa said. “… You try to keep them eating stuff. I was like his little pack mule.”

Kidrick was still feeling good. Babich paced him for 18 miles after the river crossing. Kidrick cruised the last several miles by himself despite Babich offering to continue pacing.

“I’d been on the trail for 24 hours at that point, and I hit my low point,” Kidrick said.

But he finished.

And Badger, who picked up another pacer in Schoenhals for the home stretch, hit his stride. The two finished the relatively flat final five miles in under 40 minutes.

The feeling at the finish, both said, wasn’t being overcome with emotion like they expected.

“We’d left it all on the trail,” Kidrick explained.

But despite all the trauma described, all the chances to stop, neither did.